Optimizing Routing Protocols to Extend Mobile Ad Hoc Network’s Lifespan

Mobile Ad Hoc Networks belongs to the category of infrastructure-less decentralized networks with a host of features that suits communication requirements in various scenarios. Many research activities are going on to improve on the advantages of MANET and also to provide remedial actions to the issues that exists in it. Out of the many issues faced in the routing protocols of Mobile Ad Hoc Networks, most of them are found to be a common in almost all of the routing protocols. In this paper one such common issue relating to the network lifetime is identified, analyzed and a unified solution is proposed that can be applied to the benefit of most of the MANET routing protocols. The analysis is done using both analytical and software-based approach. QualNet Network Simulator is used for simulation and the protocol selected is Ad hoc On-Demand Distance Vector Routing (AODV). In this analysis, the nodes at the center of any network were found be over utilized. This is due the burden of transmitting the data packets to and from, every other node surrounding them. To prevent the over exploitation of battery power of a few nodes due to their strategic location in the network, two approaches are introduced. One is the concept of Helper nodes and the other is the alternate path approach. They both can be a formidable pair, to alleviate the early node exhaustion syndrome. This will lead to increase in the lifespan of MANET.